Lighting the Path: Light Delivery Strategies to Activate Photoresponsive Biomaterials In Vivo

Photoresponsive biomaterials are experiencing a transition from in vitro models to in vivo demonstrations that point toward clinical translation. Dynamic hydrogels for cell encapsulation, light-responsive carriers for controlled drug delivery, and nanomaterials containing photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy are relevant examples. Nonetheless, the step to the clinic largely depends on their combination with technologies to bring light into the body. This review highlights the challenge of photoactivation in vivo, and presents strategies for light management that can be adopted for this purpose. The authors’ focus is on technologies that are materials-driven, particularly upconversion nanoparticles that assist in “direct path” light delivery through tissue, and optical waveguides that “clear the path” between external light source and in vivo target. The authors’ intention is to assist the photoresponsive biomaterials community transition toward medical technologies by presenting light delivery concepts that can be integrated with the photoresponsive targets. The authors also aim to stimulate further innovation in materials-based light delivery platforms by highlighting needs and opportunities for in vivo photoactivation of biomaterials.     

Temporal-logic query checking over finite data streams

International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer - This paper describes a technique for solving temporal-logic queries over finite sets of finite-length data streams. Such data...     

Diffuse color patterning using blended electrochromic polymers for proof‐of‐concept adaptive camouflage plaques

A study using three different pairs of electrochromic polymers (ECPs) synthesized onto plaques by means of a modified vapor phase polymerization (VPP) technique is presented. Restriction of the respective polymerization times, allowed both faster and slower polymerizing monomers to be controlled, and produced blended plaques with visually diffuse interfaces. The ECPs within the blended plaques retain their individual electrochromic behavior and when encapsulated into an electrochromic device, show outstanding optical switching performance with little degradation evident over 10,000 cycles, coupled with a switching time of the order of 1 second. Blends also allow multiple diffuse color changes within an electrochromic device, due to the difference in oxidation potentials of the individual ECPs, making them candidates for adaptive camouflage use. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42158.     

Activity-Directed Synthesis: A Flexible Approach for Lead Generation

Activity-directed synthesis (ADS) is a structure-blind, functional-driven molecular discovery approach. In this Concept, four case studies highlight the general applicability of ADS and showcase its flexibility to support different medicinal chemistry strategies. ADS deliberately harnesses reactions with multiple possible outcomes, and allows many chemotypes to be evaluated in parallel. Resources are focused on bioactive molecules, which emerge in tandem with associated synthetic routes. Some of the future challenges for ADS are highlighted, including the realisation of an autonomous molecular discovery platform. The prospects for ADS to become a mainstream lead generation approach are discussed.     

Word length and lexical activation: Longer is better.

Many models of spoken word recognition posit the existence of lexical and sublexical representations, with excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms used to affect the activation levels of such representations. Bottom-up evidence provides excitatory input, and inhibition from phonetically similar representations leads to lexical competition. In such a system, long words should produce stronger lexical activation than short words, for 2 reasons: Long words provide more bottom-up evidence than short words, and short words are subject to greater inhibition due to the existence of more similar words. Four experiments provide evidence for this view. In addition, reaction-time-based partitioning of the data shows that long words generate greater activation that is available both earlier and for a longer time than is the case for short words. As a result, lexical influences on phoneme identification are extremely robust for long words but are quite fragile and condition-dependent for short words. Models of word recognition must consider words of all lengths to capture the true dynamics of lexical activation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Colloidal Synthesis of Hollow Cobalt Sulfide Nanocrystals

Formation of cobalt sulfide hollow nanocrystals through a mechanism similar to the Kirkendall Effect has been investigated in detail. It is found that performing the reaction at > 120 °C leads to fast formation of a single void inside each shell, whereas at room temperature multiple voids are formed within each shell, which can be attributed to strongly temperature‐dependent diffusivities for vacancies. The void formation process is dominated by outward diffusion of cobalt cations; still, the occurrence of significant inward transport of sulfur anions can be inferred as the final voids are smaller in diameter than the original cobalt nanocrystals. Comparison of volume distributions for initial and final nanostructures indicates excess apparent volume in shells, implying significant porosity and/or a defective structure. Indirect evidence for fracture of shells during growth at lower temperatures was observed in shell‐size statistics and transmission electron microscopy images of as‐grown shells. An idealized model of the diffusional process imposes two minimal requirements on material parameters for shell growth to be obtainable within a specific synthetic system.     

Optimal space-time constellations from groups

We consider the design of space-time constellations based on group codes for fading channels with multiple transmit and receive antennas. These codes can be viewed as multiantenna extensions of phase-shift keying (PSK), in the sense that all codewords have equal energy, all are rotations of a fixed codeword, and there is a simple differential transmission rule that allows data to be sent without channel estimates at the transmitter or receiver. For coherent detection, we show that all optimal full-rank space-time group codes are unitary (each code matrix has equal-energy, orthogonal rows). This leads to a simpler code design criterion and suggests that unitary codes may play an important role in coherent as well as noncoherent communication. For any number of transmit antennas t, we then use the design criterion to characterize all full-rank unitary space-time group codes of minimum block length (also t) which have 2/sup p/ codewords. These results allow us to characterize all optimal 2/sup p/-ary unitary group codes with square code matrices. This restricted class of block codes matches the class proposed for differential modulation by Hughes (see IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol.46, p.2567-78, Nov. 2000), and by Hochwald and Sweldens (see IEEE Trans. Commun., vol.48, p.2041-2052, Dec. 2000).     

Secobarbital in humans discriminating triazolam under two-response and novel-response procedures

The percentage of long-term survivors after intensive chemotherapy and the outcome of MDS patients who achieve partial remission (PR) with intensive chemotherapy (IC) are not known. Between 1981 and 1996 we treated 99 patients with de novo MDS who had high-risk MDS or progression to AML, with IC. 41 (41%) achieved CR, 16 (16%) achieved partial remission (PR), 26 (26%) had failure, and 16 (16%) died in aplasia. Eight of the patients who achieved CR were autografted, three were allografted and the remaining cases received moderate consolidation chemotherapy. After IC, the 16 PR patients fulfilled the criteria for RA in 15 cases and CMML in one case. Median PR duration was 17 months, and three PR were > 3 years (39, 50+, 82+ months). Median actuarial survival of patients who achieved PR and CR was 18 months and 20 months from the onset of IC, respectively (difference not significant). Of the 71 patients treated before 1993, with sufficient follow-up, 10 (14%) had survived > 4 years (long-term survivors). Four of them were alive in first CR after 49+ to 110+ months and probably cured, two were alive in PR after 50+ and 82+ months and four had died after 49-78 months. Long-term survivors were characterized by a significantly higher incidence of RAEB-T at diagnosis, and with normal or favourable cytogenetic findings. In patients with RAEB-T at diagnosis included before 1993, 8/23 (35%) cases who had no unfavourable karyotype had survived > 4 years. Our findings suggest that MDS patients who achieve PR with IC, and not only those who achieve CR, can benefit from this type of treatment. The percentage of long-term survivors remains low, however, and is almost restricted to patients with RAEB-T at diagnosis and no unfavourable karyotype.